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Faith’s Blog

Strawberries in the Death Capital?

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When I agreed to teach literature this year I couldn’t have known just how intense it would prove to be. More on that later. Today my students celebrate the culmination of two months of research in just twelve minutes. Here, they call on our community to come together and begin making moves to tackle issues they didn’t create but are determined to resolve together with a coalition of our fellows. We are all in this together and the time is NOW.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are ecstatic to present you with the NPR Podcast Challenge submission from the Stilwell High School Senior Class of 2020: Strawberries in the Death Capital. A story researched, produced, written, recorded, and published by students.

Listen to Strawberries In The Death Capital by faif on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-427794673/strawberries-in-the-death-capital

Listen to Strawberries In The Death Capital by faif

Strawberries in the Death Capital?

Wherein I Bathe With My Editor

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Under the River Bridge

We were supposed to go to the courthouse to file our marriage license. Couldn’t find the license at first … but Trophy Husburnd hunted it down in the back of the truck. It was just a *little* rumpled. Still good though. We went to the courthouse. The clerk took one look at it and said, “you don’t have a second witness,” and sent us away. It was my one job to have my mother sign the marriage certificate. I failed.
So, conveniently, we were on our way to meet Mom and Dad for breakfast. She signed it. So we went back to the courthouse for the second time. The clerk started the filing process. For some reason I felt shocked and said, “WHEW! It’s really official!” I didn’t realize all the people in the office were listening. They started laughing. ALL OF THEM. At first I thought they must be laughing at an inside joke but, no, they were laughing at us. One of the ladies said, “your entire face just turned beet red!” And then everybody had another good round of laughs.

Finally, a nice young gentleman standing in a window box offered a word of encouragement. “Well, now at least no more stress or anxiety,” he said. I nodded my head in agreement. “Sure,” I replied, my eyes bugging out. “No stress. No anxiety.” Everyone just stood there in silence for one moment more, then they burst into laughter again. I felt like I was doing a 7 minute set at the Loony Bin.

I’m glad my Trophy Husburnd seems ok with this version of life. We often say to each other, and I actually believe it to be true, that no other human could tolerate either one of us long-term. He takes it all in stride. For the first time in my life I have granted someone editing rights over my work. If I write something that offends him and he lets me know, I will edit it out. It’s one of the perks of the job. I made the dude my Editor-in-Chief. It’s a BIG STEP. I memorialize life almost every day in some sort of writing – my journal, a silly facebook post, this blog… Not many people are willing to tolerate that level of intrusion. I happen to think he’s the only one up for the task.

After we took care of the marriage license business I said, “take me down to the river bridge.” We bathed in the river. It was 47° Fahrenheit. When we were done I asked, “do you wish you had a normal wife?” He just said, “No,” without further explanation. See what I mean?

I’m soaking up these verses about freedom from fear today:

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Deuteronomy 31:6

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalms 27:1
I like to recognize my fear and then run at it HARD until it is overcome.

I still feel very uncomfortable/insecure about the health part of this blog but I’m just going on with it until it either becomes something or I just get bored with it altogether.

Day 2 Menu

Ham and cheese omelette

Leftovers: Butternut squash, 5 oz hamburger

Spinach and blueberry tuna salad, Primal Kitchen vinaigrette, sunflower seeds (LAY OFF ME IM STARVING)

Oh yeah, I’m also drinking half my body weight in water ounces (!!!) That’s a lotta watta.

Honesty: I lost four pounds, then I gained eleven back and now I lost another four. I’ve never been good at math but I think this means I’m WINNING

(I also had 3 glasses of pinot noir tonight)

Ok, see you soon. #okienoir

Behold and Spring Forth

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For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17‭-‬18

Sometimes we are the recipients of pain brought on by others, simply because we are a safe outlet to dispose of that pain. My immediate reaction to the angst heaped on my head from others today, the first day of the New Year 2020, was irritation. January 1, whilst a man-made illusion, is still our symbolic new day, our new year, our decade, a new chapter for which I am hopeful and in anticipation of many blessings. On this day, if any, shouldn’t we be able to believe in renewal, however naive?

It’s too easy to focus in on the things that come in the moment. Depending on the events of the day, we make an emotional decision about whether the day was good or bad. But if my hope sways or surges based on words that a wounded human says to me in order to release their own pain, then how am I any different than the rest of the world? One of my good friends says, “Every day is a gift.” I believe him. We just have to keep remembering that.

Even the worst grief, we are told by the word, is merely a light affliction compared to eternal weight. With years I pray comes better understanding, on a soul-level, of the transience of these days, the transformation of my TEMPORARY body-temple made up of soil, salt & stardust … and the metamorphosis of my eternal being.

We are often told by pop psychiatrists that people don’t and/or can’t change but that is a lie of slaveholders. We are not bound by that. People DO change and we continue changing even after we die. So BEHOLD and spring forth. It is always time for hope, visionary zeal and action, wherever you are. The Time Is Now.

Speaking of change. Bear with me. Two dudes are complaining right now about all the new people at the gym. The joke’s on them … because I’m not there. The doc wants me to write positive things about my health so the best I can do here is make a joke. This is hardly an elegant plate but it does move toward the criteria I’ve been charged with in the face of a hypertension diagnosis: one-ingredient foods, 3/4 vegetables. Roasted Butternut squash, pickle and onion (I count that as veg!!!) and a 5 oz. beef patty, no cheese. Less stress. Plus, a glass of pinot noir and a piece of dark chocolate. I can still have that. Eventually I think I will have to do away with both the juice and the sauce but you know what, it’s a holiday. And I like-a the sauce. I went in for a checkup and guess what? I lost four pounds but zero inches. What kind of crap is that? Where were those four pounds? MY ANKLES???



Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?

#fattiphillips #okienoir

Wedding Song Scars and Heartbreak

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Our Wedding Photo

Wedding Song

I wrote an entire book about the man who broke my heart. Then I went and married him. This is my wedding song. The whole thing didn’t happen just as easy as that. Social media succinctly describes the situation as, “It’s Complicated”. The ultimate line is that over the course of five years and the most extreme of highs and lows, we made a choice to be together. In the weeks leading up to my marriage I found myself crying… A LOT. This was out of character. Even my fiancee, my Intended, was taken aback. We would be out on the road and I’d burst into tears for no apparent reason. He’d ask, “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” I’d reply in a shaky voice, “It’s … OUR WEDDING!”

Not necessarily the response a fella wants to hear from his prospective bride, eh? I undertook some serious soul searching about my emotional upheaval and its implications. Then I realized I was being made vulnerable again, for the second time in my life, and not necessarily according to my own will. Over the course of twenty years I’ve been building up this armor, a hard cover, to protect myself. I’m not sorry for it – it helped me survive up to this point. But the time had come to shed its weight and welcome a new freedom. With that comes new vulnerability. I can’t help but think of the lines from that Psychedelic Funk song, Maggot Brain:

“Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time
For y’all have knocked her up
I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe
I was not offended
For I knew I had to rise above it all
Or drown in my own sh*t”

Twenty years ago I had dreams not far from the dreams I have today. I lived in another world, a dream world, fashioned by books and fantastic stories. The only major difference between the Faith of age 16 and the Faith of age 40 is the callouses that formed over a few decades of weathering this world. So now I’m becoming soft again. Change. That’s all. It Comes.

The essay I’m sending you today comes from a young woman who is about the same age I was the first time I experienced heartbreak. We tend to minimize their experience. We forget that they’re going through emotional turmoil, equally as heavy as our own. The difference is they don’t yet have on their armor. They’re exposed and willing to bear the grief and joy that love brings. If that is so, then why can’t we? Ladies & Gentlemen, please consider the tender and vulnerable work of Adair County writer Chevelle Deason. She couldn’t have known it at the time she submitted this essay, but she gave us a wedding gift. Thank you, Ms. Deason:

Scars & Heartbreak

By Chevelle Deason

First loves are always so magical. They’re supposed to be, at least. Sweet moments with your partner. Hand holding. Cheesy flirts. But what happens when all your first love does is make you sad? What happens when all they manage to do is make you sob and make you want to disappear?

Two mentally ill people cannot make a stable relationship, just like two wrongs cannot equal a right. You can’t add two negatives and expect a positive. It doesn’t work out like that. An insensitive, blunt person does not mix well with an overly sensitive, soft person. One always says or does the wrong thing. One always puts more effort into the relationship than the other. One always loves harder. One always has more passion.

Maybe one knows how to lie better than the other.

In a relationship like that no one is innocent. You regret spending so much time in a horrible relationship like that. You regret your own trust and naivete. You regret giving in to manipulation. You lie awake late at night filled with anger and hurt. You can’t get it through your head that they didn’t deserve you. They didn’t deserve the love and effort you poured into the relationship, toxic or not. You regret allowing yourself to be traumatized to the point that you’re terrified to enter another relationship. You’re scared your new partner will turn out the same way.

You regret everything. You regret existence. You regret meeting, seeing, thinking of their existence. You burn with hatred, directed at the one who hurt you, but mostly directed at yourself. You’re filled with so many negative emotions that you forget…

You’re a boss.

You’re a queen.

You forget that, yeah, even though you may have had a level of fault in the failed relationship, you emerged a better person. You learned self-worth. You learned you deserve better. You learned that it’s okay to say no. You learned self-care. You learned, you grew and you healed. You’re getting better and you found someone deserving of you and all you have to give. They deserve your smile, your love, your kind words and gentle touches. 

You learned to love yourself. 

You learned that you deserve love. You deserve to be treated kindly. You deserve to be happy. Yes, you. The person reading this. No matter what you’re going through, no matter your level of pain … I believe in you. I believe you can make it through. You’re strong, despite everything. Despite the scars and the heartbreak. Despite all that … it’s still you. 

That means we can still have hope. That means we are still willing to fight for love.

Death Isn’t Like The Movies

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The author, Jerri Daugherty, and her dad, Ray Bearfoot Daugherty.

Hi there, it’s your old pal Faith but not for long this time. I have seen the future. She lives and writes in Adair County. Part of my dream for this website was to provide a forum for young writers to be published. I wasn’t published until my mid-thirties but when it happened my life was changed. It set me on fire. The opportunity to hand that fire down to another writer, especially an Adair County writer, feels like looking up at the stars. Big and small all at once…

I asked my students to write their personal narratives. I told them not to self-censor and encouraged them to express themselves freely without fear of judgment or reprisal. I was emotionally unprepared for their responses. Passionate young writers are coming up in Adair County and, by God, they are going to tell their stories.

The following piece is from a writer named Jerri Daugherty. I should have known she was a writer the moment she stepped in my room for the first time. She was dead-serious and bespectacled. She said, “This looks to be the room of a witch.”

I wish I had known then what I know now. Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you the superior and heartbreaking work of my colleague, Jerri Daugherty:

“Death is not like the movies. It doesn’t give you a warning. You don’t get to say goodbye. There is no talking to the dead once they’re gone. They don’t wander around the house waiting to talk to you. There’s nothing but confusion and the bitter realization that you are forced to go on, even if you don’t want to. Sometimes, it goes like this:

     You wake up in the morning to get ready for school. You get dressed, do your makeup, brush your hair, and go to the bus stop. You don’t wake up your parents to say goodbye, especially not your dad, because he was tired the night before. He was sleeping in the rocking chair in the living room when your boyfriend brought you home.

     You head out to school and have a good day. A normal day. Normal, that is, until you arrive at your local vocational college and start to work on your daily module. It’s the same old welding module you’ve been studying for weeks; angles, metals, and so forth. You’re joking around with your friends when all of the sudden your instructor asks you to come into his office.

     I don’t remember all the details. It isn’t a time my brain wants to keep. My instructor basically told me something bad had happened and he couldn’t tell me anything except that it wasn’t good. He looked me straight in the eye and asked if he could pray with me. As a Christian I’m always open to prayer but this seemed different. I let him pray with me. 

     I checked my phone on the way to the office. Nothing. Yet I felt in my heart that the news would be bad. 

    When I arrived at the office the most unexpected sight was waiting for me there: my grandma.

     She said, “Did anyone tell you?”

     Obviously, no. 

     “It’s your dad,” she said. “He’s gone.”

     I was completely dumbfounded. 

     “What?” That was all I could say. 

     There was no way. He was just asleep this morning in bed with my mom. There is no fucking way. 

     We got into my grandmother’s car and I called mom. My brother answered her phone. He was angry. He just kept saying over and over, “Dad’s dead. Dad’s dead.”

     I didn’t want to believe it. I called him a liar and kept asking where my dad was. I demanded to speak to him. My mom finally got on the phone, crying, and told me it was real and to get home as fast and as safe as possible. We hung up.

     Grandma drove the speed limit on the way to my house. I was stunned and staring out the windshield thinking, “this isn’t real, this can’t be real”. If I’d been in my right mind I’d have asked to drive. I would have sped the whole way home, like my brother did. 

     When I got to my house I saw an ambulance and cop cars, or maybe just one cop car, I can’t remember. What I do remember is getting out of my grandma’s car and dropping my bag right there where I stood. I pointed at the ambulance and asked, “Is my daddy in there?”

     I was sixteen years old. I hadn’t called him “Daddy” in years but that’s how it came out that day. Daddy. 

     I don’t remember every single detail. This is all I have: I walked into the house. A lady cop was there and she tried to keep me out. She’s lucky she didn’t succeed because I think I might have hit her. That was my dad in there. I was getting to him one way or another.

     When I got to my dad they had him covered with a sheet-like thing. I grabbed his hand. He was so cold. I started to cry. I shook his hand and begged him, “wake up, Dad, please. Wake up, please, Dad.”

     I was there for what felt like forever. Then Mom said it was time to go. I remember sitting outside with all my family there. Just waiting. Waiting for them to bring my dad out of the house. They left him in there for hours, there on the ground. He didn’t belong there. He didn’t deserve to die on the floor, alone. 

     Too often I wonder if he suffered. Did he call out for one of us? Was he crying? Was he ready? Did he know how much I loved him? Did he know how kind, funny, and important he was to us? Did he take our love with him when he left us?

     Did he know how much I fucking loved him?

     I was, and still remain, so mad. I was mad at everyone because they weren’t him. They were living, breathing, and he wasn’t. I was mad at myself for not saying goodbye that morning. I should have awakened him. I was mad at God for taking my dad away from me. My friend. My supporter. My hero. My first love.

     After the Important People took my dad’s body and everyone left, we all sat in the house confused and crying. 

     We’ve made it so far. That’s not the whole story. It will never end now. It still hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. I still cry and pray, begging God to bring him back. But he can’t. 

     Can He?”

Stella and A Parliament of Owls

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Original painting by Cherokee artist Kindra Swafford.
https://www.kindraswafford.com

Let me tell you a little story about owls. Some of you know the peculiar tale about how a parliament of owls gathered around the night I told my sisters the story that became my first fiction novel. It scared my baby sister so badly that she ran away and cried.

But this is not that story. This is yet another true and very bizarre tale about what happened one night in Proctor, Oklahoma. I stayed over at my family home that night for some reason I cannot now recall. I woke up in the 2 o’clock hour with the strong urge to make water. I might’ve consumed some of my Dad’s wine before retiring. I stumbled into the bathroom and felt struck by a strange compulsion to look out the small bathroom window. Again, I can’t explain why. An old Oak, some wild blackberry bushes and honeysuckle were the only things to be seen back there. Our neighbor Herbie’s field stretched out beyond the fenceline.

My eyes were still bleary with sleep when I peered out the window. But the spectacle I witnessed in the backyard caused them to go cold-sober and wide as saucers. There, sitting on the lowest branch of the old Oak under the yellow light of a full moon was the largest bird I had ever seen. He looked to be four feet in height, his eyes easily the size of my mother’s tea cup saucers. The owl was looking down, directly below his perch. I followed his gaze with my own. Sitting there on her haunches and looking up was Stella, my mom and dad’s gentle-giant St. Bernard. She was a beautiful darling and we treated her as such. My parents sometimes put a pastel beret on her head, which she wore with aplomb.
So there they sat, these two, just staring at each other. I had to get closer for I could scarce believe the spectacle before my own eyes. As I bolted to the door I thought it must have all been a hallucination. By the time I eased the screen door open and crept along the side of the house I had convinced myself that nothing would be there. I knew I would go back to bed feeling very silly.

I slowly maneuvered around the corner. To my horror and great delight there they sat even still, only now I could hear a very strange sound the owl made at Stella. It wasn’t a hoot at all but rather a rapid series of low staccato sounds. I shouldn’t have done it but I felt I had to move closer. The moment I took a forward step, the great horned owl dropped out of that tree like an open-air glider. The staggering sight of it was made all the more spectacular by the whipping sound of those massive wings as they carried him away, off into the darkness. Stella looked at me and if I didn’t know better, I’d believe she had a countenance of embarrassment on her face, to have been caught cavorting after the midnight hour with, of all things, a creature of the night.

When I think about it now I know that it is one of those visions in life that will go with me to the grave. One of those lucky snapshots that can never be replicated. Stella is gone now and she is sorely missed. But she never quite looked at me the same after that. I guess I will spend the rest of my days wondering what message he delivered to her that night, perched up on the gnarled old Oak branch in the light of a full Harvest Moon. #okienoir